Transnational Social Strike Plattform - 1st of March a first step?

Migrants, Workers, Activists // Act! Demonstrate! Strike!A day of coordinated initiatives against borders and precarization,towards a transnational social strike!

Q&A:

Why a transnational day of coordinated actions against borders and precarization in Europe?

Because national social and labour policies are placed inside a European framework, precarity is organized along transnational chains of production and exploitation and migrant labour and migrants’ mobility are challenging the European order and austerity regime as never before. While the EU and its member States are struggling to control and govern mobility for the sake of profit, we need to experiment new forms of transnational organization and action. We don’t want to save this Europe, but we refuse the idea that national sovereignty can be a solution in the direction of freedom against exploitation. We don’t want to save Schengen by securing external borders, we want freedom of movement for all. For these reasons, we will take a stance on the side of migrants and we will claim a European visa without restrictions.

Why the 1st of March?

Because on the 1st of March 2010, after a call from France to organize a migrants’ «24 hours without us», in Italy a nationwide political strike against the immigration law was organized by a broad coalition. From that day, we take the strength of migrant labour and its capacity of being the point of connection among different places and conditions. On the 1st of March we want to take back the idea of the migrant strike and extend it to all the social figures that are suffering the austerity measures and border regime today, since only creating a large social front we can have the strength to fight for our rights.

Why now?

The blackmailing against Greece and the so called “refugee crisis” have shaken Europe: it is now time to bring the voice of migrants and the refusal of the attempt to reorganize Europe along the nexus between a stricter government of mobility, the austerity regime and more precarization of all. For doing this, it is now the moment to take a clear stance and to overcome the borders of usual politics and labor disputing, even among social movements and unions.

Is it just another European day of action as we have already seen in the past?

The 1st of March will not be a day of action like others: it will be the first experiment of a longer process towards a transnational social strike across Europe and towards the demand of common claims. These claims can be a European minimum wage, a European basic income and welfare system based on residence, a European residence permit independent from labour contract and income levels.

What is going to happen the 1st of March?

Depending on local conditions, the 1st of March 2016 will be a day of decentralized and coordinated actions and strikes, aimed at disrupting regular production and reproduction, producing communication among different working conditions, making visible hidden situations of exploitation, targeting the border regime and the institutions that govern mobility and precarity. Be the 1st of March 2016 the day when we take a clear stance against a government of mobility that produces precarity for all. A day when we find common demands and claims.

Where is it going to happen the 1st of March?

To date, more than 20 cities across nine countries (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, England, Poland, Scotland, Slovenia), both inside and outside the Schengen space, have announced actions and demonstrations. More will join in the following days! See the complete list below. We will use the hastags #1M and #TSS to connect the different actions.

What is a transnational social strike?

The strike is transnational and social when it is able to cross the established borders of activism and syndicalism, countries and sectors, moving across society and workplaces outside the traditional forms of organization, addressing the political conditions of exploitation and the social questions. What we want is to take back the strike as a weapon of insubordination.

What is the Transnational Social Strike Platform?

The transnational social strike platform is not a collective nor a coordination among the proposing groups, but a political platform with the goal of involving more groups and people across Europe and beyond towards the common goal of a transnational social strike. We have neither identity nor a past to defend, but just an open process to storm the present.

How can I get more information or join the process?

The TSS platform has a website and a Facebook page for external communication.

Frankfurt (Germany): Precarious Stations: Making precarious life and work visible. City walk and gathering. Meeting point for city walk 3pm at Kaisersack. “Gathering of the precarious“ from 7pm to 9.30pm, meeting point @KOZ Café, Studierendenhaus, Campus Bockenheim. Contact: PrekärLab Frankfurt, [email protected]

Poznan (Poland): picket in front of Adecco at 12:00! Against temporary agencies and precarity! Against borders! For the rights of migrants, precarious and industry workers! Contact: Inicjatywa Pracownicza.

The experience of Greece demonstrates the importance of building a pan European movement based on values of solidarity and deep democracy. Thank you for doing so much to organise this . Hilary Wainwright| Red Pepper magazine |

"This is sheer unbridled sadism. The Greek people are being punished for the failure of the neo-liberal consensus to avert the hideous and increasing forms of inequality which were always inscribed within its mandate. Nothing can explain why the most powerful countries of Europe should want to continue to impose on Greece policies which have brought it to the brink of collapse, other than the desire to precipitate a true collapse which they will then take as the proof that only their vicious system could have saved it - a self-defeating argument and a blatant lie. We can only speculate what unconscious links there must be between the forgiving of Germany's post-war debt, of which it remains the beneficiary to this day and without which it would not be in a position to dictate its terms, and its refusal to countenance any such forgiveness, let alone the paying of war reparations, to Greece. No logic can explain it. We have entered the realm of the cruellest social fantasy. The irony is that the whole of Europe will now suffer. But our hearts go out to the Greek people who will suffer - who are already suffering - most."

Jacqueline Rose, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.

Étienne Balibar :"The struggle of the Greek people is the struggle of all European democrats, of all those who believe in human progress . In the case of a potential defeat all European peoples would pay the price. In the case of a potential victory, as limited as it may be, all European peoples would benefit. That's why it is necessary for those French and European forces who have hope in the renewal of democracy to positively answer the calls of Syriza to build European solidarity around Greece and the Greek people. The perspective of a referendum urgently requires the reinforcement of this solidarity"

Slavoj Zizek: "The struggle that goes on is the struggle for theEuropean economic and political Leitkultur.The EU powers stand for the technocratic status quo which is keeping Europe ininertia for decades. In his NotesTowards a Definition of Culture, the great conservative T.S.Eliot remarkedthat there are moments when the only choice is the one between heresy andnon-belief, i.e., when the only way to keep a religion alive is to perform asectarian split from its main corpse. This is our position today with regard toEurope: only a new "heresy" (represented at this moment by Syriza) can savewhat is worth saving in European legacy: democracy, trust in people,egalitarian solidarity. The Europe that will win if Syriza is outmaneuvered isa "Europe with Asian values" (which, of course, has nothing to do with Asia,but all with the clear and present tendency of contemporary capitalism to suspenddemocracy). We from Western Europe like to look upon Greece as if we aredetached observers who follow with compassion and sympathy the plight of theimpoverished nation. Such a comfortable standpoint relies on a fateful illusion- what goes on in Greece these last weeks concerns all of us, it is the futureof Europe which is at stake. So when we read about Greece these days, we shouldalways bear in mind that, as the old saying goes, de te fabula narrator."

"The behavior of the Troika today is a disgrace. One can scarcely doubt that their goal is to make it clear that defiance to the northern banks and the Brussels bureaucracy will not be tolerated, and that thoughts of democracy and popular will must be abandoned. Other than power, there is no reason to continue with the shameful farce in which French and German banks profit from the suffering of the people of Greece."The debt should have been radically restructured long ago, or simply declared “odious” and cancelled. Today, Greeks are offered a miserable choice between two painful alternatives. One can only hope that their brave resistance to the brutal assault will encourage global solidarity that will save them and others from the harsh fate dictated by the masters."